Method and device for manufacturing titanium objects

ABSTRACT

A method and reactor of manufacturing an object by solid freeform fabrication, especially an object made of titanium or titanium alloys. An objective is to provide a method for rapid layered manufacture of objects in titanium or titanium alloys. A further objective is to provide a deposition chamber which allows prosecution of the method according to the invention.

This application is a divisional application of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/390,203, filed Apr. 17, 2012, which was the National Stageof International Patent Application No.: PCT/NO2010/000303, filed Aug.11, 2010, which claims priority to United Kingdom Patent ApplicationNo.: 0914301.7, filed Aug. 14, 2009, all of which are incorporatedherein by reference. This invention relates to a method and reactor formanufacturing objects by solid freeform fabrication, especially titaniumand titanium alloy objects.

BACKGROUND

Structured metal parts made of titanium or titanium alloys areconventionally made by casting, forging or machining from a billet.These techniques have a disadvantage of high material use of theexpensive titanium metal and large lead times in the fabrication.

Fully dense physical objects may be made by a manufacturing technologyknown as rapid prototyping, rapid manufacturing, layered manufacturingor additive fabrication. This technique employs computer aided designsoftware (CAD) to first construct a virtual model of the object which isto be made, and then transform the virtual model into thin parallelslices or layers, usually horizontally oriented. The physical object maythen be made by laying down successive layers of raw material in theform of liquid paste, powder or sheet material resembling the shape ofthe virtual layers until the entire object is formed. The layers arefused together to form a solid dense object. In case of depositing solidmaterials which are fused or welded together, the technique is alsotermed as solid freeform fabrication.

Solid freeform fabrication is a flexible technique allowing creation ofobjects of almost any shape at relatively fast production rates,typically varying from some hours to several days for each object. Thetechnique is thus suited for formation of prototypes and smallproduction series, but less suited for large volume production.

The technique of layered manufacturing may be expanded to includedeposition of pieces of the construction material, that is, eachstructural layer of the virtual model of the object is divided into aset of pieces which when laid side by side form the layer. This allowsforming metallic objects by welding a wire onto a substrate insuccessive stripes forming each layer according to the virtual layeredmodel of the object, and repeating the process for each layer until theentire physical object is formed. The accuracy of the welding techniqueis usually to coarse to allow directly forming the object withacceptable dimensions, the formed object will thus usually be considereda green object or pre-form which need to be machined to acceptabledimensional accuracy.

Taminger and Hafley [1] disclose a method and device for manufacturingstructural metal parts directly from computer aided design data combinedwith electron beam freeform fabrication (EBF). The structural part isbuilt by welding on successive layers of a metallic welding wire whichis welded by the heat energy provided by the electron beam. The processis schematically shown in FIG. 1, which is a facsimile of FIG. 1 of [1].The EBF process involves feeding a metal wire into a molten pool madeand sustained by a focused electron beam in a high vacuum environment.The positioning of the electron beam and welding wire is obtained byhaving the electron beam gun and the positioning system (the supportsubstrate) movably hinged along one or more axis (X, Y, Z, and rotation)and regulate the position of the electron beam gun and the supportsubstrate by a four axis motion control system. The process is claimedto be nearly 100% efficient in material use and 95% effective in powerconsumption. The method may be employed both for bulk metal depositionand finer detailed depositions, and the method is claimed to obtainsignificant effect on lead time reduction and lower material andmachining costs as compared to the conventional approach of machiningthe metal parts.

The electron beam technology has a disadvantage of being dependent upona high vacuum of 10⁻¹ Pa or less in the deposition chamber. This may beavoided by substituting the spot heating by the focused electron beam bya plasma transferred arc. In this case the formation of the local meltpool is obtained by heat created by an arc discharge between two inertelectrodes and which is directed onto the melting spot by a focusedstream of an inert plasma forming gas. This process may readily beapplied at atmospheric pressures and thus allow simpler and less costlyprocess equipment. An example of this technology is disclosed in U.S.Pat. No. 7,326,377 and U.S. Publication No.: 2006/185473. Thistechnology is sometimes denoted plasma transferred arc solid freeformfabrication (PTA-SFFF).

U.S. Publication No.: 2006/185473 discloses a method where a high energyplasma beam such as a welding torch in place of the very expensive lasertraditionally used in a solid freeform fabrication (SFFF) process withrelatively low cost titanium feed material by combining the titaniumfeed and alloying components in a way that considerably reduces the costof the raw materials. More particularly, in one aspect the presentinvention employs pure titanium wire (CP Ti) which is lower in cost thanalloyed wire, and combines the CP Ti wire with powdered alloyingcomponents in-situ in the SFFF process by combining the CP Ti wire andthe powder alloying components in the melt of the welding torch or otherhigh power energy beam. In another embodiment, the invention employstitanium sponge material mixed with alloying elements and formed into awire where it may be used in an SFFF process in combination with aplasma welding torch or other high power energy beam to produce near netshaped titanium components. The process according to U.S. PublicationNo.: 2006/185473 is schematically drawn in FIG. 2, which is a facsimileof FIG. 1 of this document.

Titanium metal or titanium alloys heated above 400° C. may be subject tooxidation upon contact with oxygen. It is thus necessary to protect theweld and heated object which is being formed by layered manufactureagainst oxygen in the ambient atmosphere. International Application No.:WO 2009/068843 discloses an inert gas shield for welding which producesan even outflow of protecting inert gas. By placing the shield above theobject which needs to be protected, the even flow of inert gas willdisplace ambient atmosphere without creating vortexes which may entrainambient oxygen containing gas. The shield is formed as a hollow box ofwhich the inert gas enters the interior and is allowed to escape theinterior of the box through a set of narrow openings made in one wall ofthe box.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The main objective of the invention is to provide a method for rapidlayered manufacture of objects in titanium or titanium alloys.

A further objective of the invention is to provide a deposition chamberwhich allows prosecution of the method according to the invention.

The invention is based on the realization that by making the depositionchamber sufficiently void of oxygen, the need for employing protectivemeasures to avoid oxidizing the newly welded area by ambient atmosphericoxygen is no longer present such that the welding process may proceed ata larger velocity. For example, in production of objects of titanium ortitanium alloy, there is no longer need for cooling the welded zone tobelow 400° C. to avoid oxidation.

Thus in a first aspect, the invention relates to a method of productionof an object in a weldable material by solid freeform fabrication,wherein the method comprises:

-   -   creating a virtual three dimensional model of the object which        is to be formed,    -   dividing the virtual three dimensional model into a set of        virtual parallel layers and then dividing each layer into a set        of virtual quasi one-dimensional pieces, forming a virtual        vectorized layered model of the object,    -   loading the vectorized layered model of the object into a        welding control system able to regulate the position and        activation of a support substrate, high energy plasma        transferred arc welding torch, and a wire feeding system placed        in a closed reactor vessel,    -   substituting the atmosphere inside the closed reactor vessel        with an inert atmosphere with a pressure of about 10⁵ Pa and        which contains maximum 50 ppm oxygen,    -   engaging the control system to weld a series of quasi        one-dimensional pieces of the weldable material onto the        supporting substrate in a pattern according to the first layer        of the virtual vectorized layered model of the object,    -   forming the second layer of the object by welding a series of        quasi one-dimensional pieces of the weldable material onto the        previous deposited layer in a pattern according to the second        layer of the virtual vectorized layered model of the object, and    -   repeating the welding process layer by layer for each successive        layer of the virtual vectorized layered model of the object        until the entire object is formed.

The term “virtual vectorized layered model of the object” as used hereinmeans a three dimensional computerized representation of the objectwhich is to be formed, where the object is divided into a set ofparallel layers and where each layer is divided into a set of quasione-dimensional pieces. The term “quasi one-dimensional pieces” as usedherein means longitudinal rod-resembling pieces of the welding materialwhich when laid side by side in a specific pattern according to thevectorized model will form the object that is to be formed. Therod-resembling pieces may be bended (curved) or linear. The virtualvectorized layered model may be transformed to a physical object bywelding together pieces of a welding wire corresponding to each virtualquasi one-dimensional piece of the virtual vectorized layered model.

The virtual model includes information of the dimensions and is given athree dimensional design which corresponds to the three dimensionaldesign of the physical object that is to be manufactured. The virtualvectorized layered model may then be applied as a template for thephysical construction of the object. That is, the virtual model istransformed into building instructions executed by the control system ofthe solid freeform fabrication equipment such that the physical objectis being manufactured piecemeal by welding a wire onto a substrate insuccessive stripes, where each welded stripe corresponds to a piece ofthe virtual vectorized layered model. The principle of the manufacturingprocess is shown in FIG. 1, which show construction of a metallic objectby welding a piece onto a first layer by electron beam freeformfabrication (EBF). The invention may apply any known or conceivablesoftware for computer assisted design for constructing the virtualvectorized layered model.

The method according to the first aspect of the invention may beemployed with any material which is suited for solid freeformfabrication. This includes any weldable metal or alloyed metal andpolymeric materials. The method is especially suited for manufacturingobjects in titanium or alloyed titanium.

The inert gas may be any chemically inactive gas towards the weldablematerial being used at temperatures below the softening temperature ofthe material. The inert gas may advantageously be a gas with higherdensity than air in order to alleviate the substitution of the airinside the reactor chamber with the inert gas. Argon is an example of asuited inert gas, but may also include helium, a gas mixture of Ar—He orother inert gases. The oxidation problem of i.e. titanium and alloyedtitanium becomes a problem when the inert gas contains more than 50 ppmoxygen. The oxygen level may however advantageously be lower, such asabout 20 ppm oxygen.

One standing problem of prior art plasma transferred arc solid freeformfabrication of titanium or alloyed titanium objects, is that the metalneeds to be protected against oxygen in the ambient atmosphere attemperatures above around 400° C. This leads to regular interruptions inthe welding process to avoid overheating the parts of the formed object.By employing an atmosphere in the welding zone with less than 50 ppmoxygen, this need for regular intervals to avoid overheating issubstantially reduced since the object may be allowed to be heated toabove 400° C. The only temperature restriction of the process whenemploying an oxygen deficit atmosphere is that the temperature of thedeposited metal phase must be below the softening point of the metal.The term “softening point” as used herein means the temperature at whichthe material (i.e. titanium or alloyed titanium) attains a particulardegree of softening under specified conditions of test. The softeningpoint is dependent upon which alloy being employed, but is typicallyabove 800° C. or higher when employing titanium or alloyed titanium.

In a second aspect, the invention relates to a reactor for production ofan object of a weldable material by solid freeform fabrication, wherethe reactor comprises:

-   -   a reactor chamber (1) which is closed to the ambient atmosphere,    -   an actuator (2) controlling the position and movement of a        support substrate (3) placed inside the reactor chamber,    -   an actuator (4) controlling the position and movement of a high        energy plasma transferred arc welding torch (5) with a wire        feeder,    -   a control system able to read a virtual three dimensional        vectorized layered model of the object which is to be formed and        employ the virtual model to control the position and movement of        the actuators (2, 4), operation of the welding torch (5) and        wire feeder such that a physical object is built by welding a        layered structure of quasi one-dimensional pieces of the        weldable material onto the supporting structure according to the        virtual three dimensional vectorized layered model of the object        which is to be formed,

characterized in that

-   -   all adjacent wall elements (6) of the walls of the reactor        chamber are joined with an obtuse angle (larger than 90°),    -   the actuator (2) extends from below the reactor chamber and        protrudes into the reactor chamber through an opening (7) in the        reactor chamber wall holding the support substrate (3) inside        the reactor chamber,    -   the opening (7) is sealed by at least one elastic gas        impermeable membrane (8) which is gas tight attached to the        reactor wall at the opening (7) and to the actuator (2),    -   the actuator (4) extends from the outside of the reactor chamber        and protrudes into the reactor chamber through an opening (9) of        the wall of reactor chamber holding the high energy plasma        transferred arc welding torch (5) with wire feeder of the        weldable material inside the reactor chamber,    -   the opening (9) is sealed by the at least one elastic gas        impermeable membrane (10) which is gas tight attached to the        reactor wall at the opening (9) and to the actuator (4), and    -   the reactor is equipped with at least one closable gas inlet        (11) located in the lower part the reactor chamber and at least        one closable gas outlet (12) located at the upper part of the        reactor chamber.

The term “wall of the reactor chamber” as used herein, includes allsides of the enclosed compartment constituting the reactor chamberincluding floor and ceiling unless specified otherwise. The term “lowerpart of the reactor chamber” as used herein means some location in thelower level (close to the floor) of the reactor chamber, while the term“upper part of the reactor chamber” as used herein means some locationin the upper level (close to the ceiling) of the reactor chamber.

The feature of adjoining the wall elements constituting the walls of thereactor chamber with an obtuse angle combined with at least one closablegas inlet at the lower part of the chamber and at least one closable gasoutlet at the upper part of the reactor chamber, provides the ability tosubstitute the atmosphere inside the chamber with inert pure argon gas,helium, or a gas mixture of Ar—He in a simple and effective manner whichpractically eliminates vortices and back flow zones entraining remnantsof the oxygen containing gas which is to be substituted. This featuremay thus be considered as a mean for effective filling of the reactorchamber with inert gas. Thus the term “highest level” as used hereinmeans the highest part of the reactor chamber relative to thegravitational field, and the term “the lowest level” is the lowest partof the reactor chamber relative to the gravitational field.

The effect of the obtuse angle between adjacent wall elements increasesthe larger angle being employed. However, the size of the reactorcompartment will increase with increasing angle. Thus in practice it isnecessary to find a trade-off between the need for avoid sharp edgesinside the chamber and the size of the chamber. Thus the obtuse angleshould in practice be between 95 and 130°, more suitably between 100 and120°.

The feature of placing the main parts of the actuators controlling theposition and movement of the support substrate and the welding torch(including wire feeder) on the outside of the reactor chamber is toreduce the possibility of forming back flow zones or vortex formingzones around the production equipment inside the reactor chamber to alevel as low as possible, and thus aid the process of flushing out theoxygen in the reactor chamber before initiating the solid freeformfabrication of the object. The flushing of the chamber is alleviated byplacing electric cables, tubes etc. passing through the reactor walls ata distance of each other of at least 5 mm. The elastic gas tight sealingof the openings in the reactor chamber may be obtained by employing oneor more layers of elastic and gas impermeable rubber. The rubbersheet(s) may be attached by using clamping frames which is attached tothe reactor wall and clamping rings attached to the actuator armprotruding in through the opening in the reactor chamber. In thismanner, the actuator arms is given the possibility of moving ratherfreely in relation to the reactor wall and still obtain a gas tightclosure of the opening in the reactor wall by the elastic gasimpermeable rubber.

The oxygen protection of the reactor chamber may be increased byinserting sufficient argon to obtain a slightly elevated pressure insidethe reactor chamber as compared to the ambient atmosphere, such as forinstance around 100 Pa above the ambient atmosphere. The reactor chambermay also be equipped with a measuring instrument to monitor one or moreof the oxygen, nitrogen and other gas contents in the inert atmosphereinside the chamber, and thus allowing flushing out eventual occurrenceof inacceptable oxygen, nitrogen etc. levels in the reactor chamberbefore reaching levels harmful for the metal object under manufacturing.

The reactor chamber according to the second aspect of the invention mayeasily be filled with argon or other inert atmosphere to obtain anatmosphere inside the chamber with an oxygen concentration of 50 ppm orless. At such low oxygen levels, there is no significant risk ofinacceptable oxidation of the object being formed, such that the weldingprocess may be run at an elevated temperature as compared to prior artsolid freeform fabrication methods. The temperature of the object may beincreased up to the softening point. In case of employing titanium oralloyed titanium, the temperature of the metal may be as high as 800° C.or more during the layered fabrication of the object. This feature willthus significantly reduce the time required to cool the newly formed webbefore proceeding with the welding process as compared to prior artwhich requires temperatures below 400° C.

By use of a reactor chamber according to the second aspect of theinvention, it is observed that the air inside the chamber may becompletely flushed out by inserting argon gas in a steady easy manner atflow conditions giving laminar flow through the gas inlets in the bottomof the chamber by inserting only the same amount of inert gas as thevolume of the chamber and still obtain an oxygen content in the inertargon atmosphere of about 20 ppm oxygen. It is thus not necessary toform an overflow during filling argon; it is sufficient to only gentlypush out the air and stop filling inert gas and close the inert gasoutlet at the top of the chamber as soon as all air is pushed out. Thisgives an advantage in very little use of the costly inert gas.

The reactor chamber may also include a closed cooling circuit whereinert gas are taken out of the chamber, passed through a heat-exchangerto lower its temperature, and then inserted into the reactor chamber ina closed recycle loop. This feature is advantageous to avoid overheatingthe reactor chamber in cases where the welding torch is operated withhigh powers. The welding torch may be operated with effects of 5-6 kW orhigher, and in such cases a sealed reactor space of 1-2 m³ would rapidlybe heated to high temperatures without active cooling of the gas phaseinside the chamber.

The invention may apply any known or conceivable control system foroperating the actuators, welding torch, and wire feeder. The actuatorsmay advantageously be equipped with a four axis motion control system(X, Y, X, and rotation). The invention may apply any known orconceivable welding torch and wire feeder system able to perform layeredmanufacturing of metallic objects by the technique known as plasmatransferred arc solid freeform fabrication (PTA-SFFF). One example ofsuch equipment is shown in FIG. 2, which is a facsimile of FIG. 1 ofU.S. Publication No.: 2006/0185473.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a facsimile of FIG. 1 of [1] showing a schematic view of theprinciple of solid freeform fabrication.

FIG. 2 is a facsimile of FIG. 1 of U.S. Publication No.: 2006/01854673showing a schematic view of the principle of plasma transferred arcsolid freeform fabrication.

FIG. 3 is a schematic side view of one embodiment of the reactoraccording to the invention.

FIG. 4 is an expanded view of an embodiment of the clamping frames forholding two layers of flexible gas tight membrane closing the opening inthe bottom of the reactor according to the invention.

FIGS. 5a and 5b are different side views of an embodiment of the reactoraccording to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF AN EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

The inventive features of the invention according to the second aspectof the invention are schematically presented in FIG. 3.

The figure shows a reactor 1 with an internal closed compartment made bya set of wall elements 6. The wall elements 6 are positioned such thatthere are no sharp edges, that is, edges with walls angled at angles of90° or less. All internal wall angles, a, of the reactor chamber areobtuse (larger than 90°). An actuator 2 which controls the position andmovement of a support substrate 3 is located outside of the reactorchamber and protrudes through an opening 7 such that the supportsubstrate 3 is located inside the reactor chamber. The opening 7 isclosed by an elastic gas tight membrane 8. An actuator 4 which controlsthe position and movement of a high energy plasma transferred arcwelding torch 5 with wire feeder for feeding a wire of the weldablematerial is located outside of the reactor chamber and protrudes throughan opening 9 such that the high energy plasma transferred arc weldingtorch 5 with wire feeder is located inside the reactor chamber. Theopening 9 is closed by an elastic gas tight membrane 10. The reactorchamber is equipped with at least one closable gas inlet 11 and at leastone closable gas outlet 12 in order to flush out oxygen containing gasesin the reactor chamber and substitute this gas with inert gas.

FIG. 4 shows an expanded view of a clamping frame 7 which may beemployed for holding two layers of an elastic gas tight membrane. Byforming two sheets of the membrane with dimensions such that the edgesenters into the space between two of the clamping frames, the membranemay be firmly and gas tight attached to the reactor wall 6 by fasteningthe clamps to the reactor walls such that they are pressed onto eachother. The actuator arm 2 protruding into the chamber is poking throughthe hole in the clamping ring 13. The dimensions of the rings 13 areadjusted to form a gas tight grip around the actuator arm. The gas tightmembrane is attached to the clamping rings 13 in the same manner as tothe clamping frames 7. The figure also shows an example of placement ofthe closable gas inlets 11.

FIGS. 5a and 5b show two different side views of an example embodimentof the reactor 100. The reactor 100 is made up of a number of wallelements 106 to form a closed cabinet. The wall elements may be providedwith a gas tight glass window 116 to allow visual observation of theprocess or with a gas tight door to allow entry into the chamber beforeand after formation of the object. The embodiment is equipped with acooling loop comprising gas outlet 102, gas inlet 103 and heat exchanger101. From FIG. 5a it is seen that the side wall opening for one actuatoris placed is closed by using a clamping frame 109 holding an elasticrubber membrane 110 (the actuator entering through the membrane is notshown for providing clarity). From FIG. 5b , it is seen that the bottomopening is closed by using a clamping frame 107 holding an elasticrubber membrane 108 (the actuator entering through the membrane is notshown for providing clarity).

REFERENCE

-   1. Taminger, K. M. and Hafley, R. A., “Electron Beam Freeform    Fabrication for Cost Effective Near-Net Shape Manufacturing”,    NATO/RTOAVT-139 Specialists' Meeting on Cost Effective Manufacture    via Net Shape Processing (Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2006) (NATO).    pp 9-25,    http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20080013538_2008013396.pdf.

1. A method of production of an object in a weldable material by solidfreeform fabrication, the method comprising: loading a support substrateinto a closed reactor vessel; substituting the atmosphere inside theclosed reactor vessel with an inert atmosphere substantially withoutcreating backflow or vortexes, wherein the inert atmosphere has apressure of about 10⁵ Pa and contains maximum 50 ppm oxygen; welding aseries of quasi one-dimensional pieces of a weldable material onto thesupporting substrate using a high energy plasma transferred arc.
 2. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein: the weldable material is aweldable metal, a weldable alloyed metal, or a polymeric material. 3.The method according to claim 2, wherein: the weldable material istitanium or alloyed titanium.
 4. The method according to claim 1,wherein: the inert atmosphere further comprises a gas selected from agroup consisting of: argon, helium or a mixture of these.
 5. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein: the inert atmosphere inside the reactorchamber comprises argon, and wherein the pressure of the inertatmosphere is about 100 Pa above the ambient atmospheric pressure. 6.The method according to claim 1, further comprising: creating a virtualthree dimensional model of an object which is to be formed.
 7. Themethod according to claim 6, further comprising: dividing the virtualthree dimensional model into a set of virtual parallel layers and thendividing each layer into a set of virtual quasi one-dimensional pieces,forming a virtual vectorized layered model of the object.
 8. The methodaccording to claim 7, further comprising: loading the virtual vectorizedlayered model of the object into a welding control system able toregulate (i) a position and activation of the support substrate placedin the closed reactor vessel, (ii) a high energy plasma transferred arcwelding torch placed in the closed reactor vessel, and (iii) a wirefeeding system placed in the closed reactor vessel.
 9. The methodaccording to claim 8, wherein the welding of the series of quasione-dimensional pieces of a weldable material onto the supportingsubstrate using a high energy plasma transferred arc is carried outaccording to the vectorized layered model of the object.
 10. The methodaccording to claim 9, further comprising: repeating the welding of quasione-dimensional pieces in accordance with the vectorized layered modelof the object until the entire object is formed.